Design for Cost in Real-time

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

When do you first start thinking about the selling price of your new product? It’s impossible to avoid the question of what the price will be. The worst answer is: “I don’t know, let’s see after the first samples.”

Let’s say the product’s selling price is $49; then the manufacturing cost will be $20. During each design change, the manufacturing cost should be recalculated to make sure the product is still competitive. This means you should involve people from both the development and cost calculation teams. This circle will be repeated until the final design is released, and the final calculation is done. Of course, if a small design change with “no impact for production” is not sent for evaluation, this is already a risk. 

What if we had a software that was able to recalculate the price of the product in real-time during the design? What if we had something implemented into the design tool that was able to understand the change and recalculate the manufacturing price?

It is hard to find a product without a PCBA inside, and calculating the manufacturing cost for this component is not easy. It can be made in the beginning of the project based on several inputs, but what factors should you consider when you start the design? These same factors should be implemented inside this magic cost calculation software. 

The cost calculation activity is irritating when your focus is hardware development and/or layout design. How do you evaluate whether a small change will increase a PCBA’s final cost? Here, I list the most important factors in the design that can impact the manufacturing cost. 

The first way to keep the cost low is to use a surface mount device (SMD). Electronics manufacturing production is expensive, and each surface and machine should be utilized efficiently. Having only SMDs in your design means it is not necessary to use another line just for the through-hole devices (THDs). This will save time in production and will reduce the risk of quality issues. The SMDs are placed by the pick-and-place machine and soldered in the reflow oven, but for THDs, the process is very time consuming. 

To read this entire article, which appeared in the April 2023 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.

SPONSORED LINK

PCBflow